Re: <nettime> Spain court confirms jail sentence for former IMF chief Rato

[ICDED + proyecto Xnet <info@conservas.tk>]

Thank you Felix.
I'm too overwhelmed to write to the list, sorry for that.
I just want to add that we proudly win the record of Iceland (btw a
model for us): we are sending to jail Rato and 16 people more, all
bankers and members of all the political parties (including the allie of
Podemos, Izquierda Unida) and the 2 main Unions.

To not get bored, we have a new trial now from the 26 of november to add
some more people to that list and we have open a court case also for 5
exministers and the main building man of Spain and President of the Real
MAdrid football team, Florentino Perez.
We keep you posted.
Love.
Simona Levi


El 4/10/18 a las 12:34, Felix Stalder escribió:
> All possibilities of appeal are exhausted, one of the most high-profile
> bankers of Spain needs to go to jail now. This makes Spain only the
> second country (after Iceland) where any prominent banker were sent to
> jail following the 2008 financial crisis. What this article fails to
> mention, like all others I found, is that the trial and conviction was
> due to an unprecedented citzien's campaign (led by people such as Simona
> Levi), which raised funds, hired lawyers and organized leaks to gather
> evidence. More on this aspect in an (older) article in The Nation.
>
> https://www.thenation.com/article/in-search-of-the-lost-republic
>
>
>
> -----------------
>
>
> https://www.expatica.com/new/es/spain-court-confirms-jail-term-for-ex-imf-chief-rato/
>
> Spain’s Supreme Court on Wednesday confirmed former IMF chief Rodrigo
> Rato’s jail sentence of four years and six months for misusing funds in
> a case that sparked outrage when it was uncovered at the height of the
> country’s economic crisis.
>
> In February 2017, Rato was found guilty by the Madrid-based National
> Court of paying for personal expenses with credit cards put at his
> disposal when he was the boss of Caja Madrid and Bankia, at a time when
> both banks were in difficulty.
>
> The 69-year-old, who is also a former Spanish economy minister, had
> since then been free on bail pending an appeal.
>
> The case shocked Spain, where it was uncovered at the height of the
> crisis that left many people struggling financially. Bankia later had to
> be nationalised.
>
> Far-left party Podemos welcomed the court ruling, saying Spaniards had
> long demanded justice “for those who robbed public money, for those who
> ripped off thousands of families, for those who burdened us with debt
> for life”.
>
> “We applaud the fact that some of those responsible, like Rodrigo Rato,
> get at least part of what they deserve,” it said in a tweet.
>
> – Misuse of 12 million euros –
>
> Rato was tried with 64 other former executives and board members at both
> banks accused of misusing a total of 12 million euros ($13.8 million)
> between 2003 and 2012 in personal expenses.
>
> Those included petrol for their cars, supermarket shopping, pricey
> holidays, luxury bags or parties in nightclubs.
>
> One of the executives, Miguel Blesa — Rato’s predecessor at Caja Madrid
> — was sentenced to six years in jail.
>
> In July 2017, Blesa was found dead with a gunshot wound to his chest at
> a private hunting estate in southern Spain.
>
> An autopsy ruled it was suicide.
>
> – Second trial –
>
> The Supreme Court will now notify the National Court of its decision,
> which will then summon Rato and give him a deadline — usually 10 to 15
> days — to allow him to pick a prison and go there voluntarily.
>
> Authorities will issue an arrest warrant against him if he does not.
>
> Rato was economy minister and deputy prime minister in the conservative
> government of Jose Maria Aznar from 1996 to 2004, before going on to
> head up the International Monetary Fund until 2007.
>
> His subsequent career as a banker in Spain was short-lived — from 2010
> to 2012. But apart from the case of the undeclared credit cards, it also
> led to another banking scandal considered the country’s biggest.
>
> Thousands of small-scale investors lost their money after they were
> persuaded to convert their savings to shares ahead of the flotation of
> Bankia in 2011, with Rato at the reins.
>
> Less than a year later, he resigned as it became known that Bankia was
> in dire straits.
>
> The state injected billions of euros but faced with the scale of
> Bankia’s losses and trouble in other banks, it asked the European Union
> for a bailout for the entire banking sector and eventually received 41
> billion euros.
>
> Rato is due to stand trial over the case, accused of falsifying
> information about Bankia’s finances to encourage investors to buy into
> its stock market listing.
>
> He is the third former IMF chief to get into trouble with the law.
>
> His successor Dominique Strauss-Kahn was tried in 2015 on pimping
> charges in a lurid sex scandal, and was acquitted.
>
> And Christine Lagarde, who took over from Strauss-Kahn and is the
> current IMF chief, was found guilty of negligence over a state payout to
> a tycoon when she was French finance minister, though she received no
> penalty.
>
>
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